Renovations keep European passenger trains on track
By Jeanne Erdmann
Europe has big plans for its passenger trains. For starters, there’s a suite of passenger "infotainment" services under consideration such as electronic mailing, file transfer, web browsing and VOD (Video On Demand). The dream for European trains is an integrated railway system able to deal with safety, communication, building and saving energy and reducing pollution. The EU (European Union) is pushing the TEN (Trans European Network), so safety and interoperability will remain at the forefront of these efforts for quite some time.
"Europe has defined some very important corridors in the TEN, where interoperability for high-speed and conventional trains shall be assured,” says Gianosvaldo Fadin of FAR Systems SpA of Verona, Italy, and Convenor of IEC TC (Technical Committee) 9 WG (Working Group) 43: Railway applications - Train communication network (TCN), and WG 46: Onboard multimedia systems for railways. "Many of these corridors cross the CEEC (Central and Eastern European Countries)."
The renovations won’t be easy because Europe is starting from more than 20 different safety systems and from many different interfaces for communication on the train and between the train and ground. The IEC is working with several local and international organizations to make this happen.
Every year, the IEC and CENELEC (European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization) have a coordination meeting in which IEC TC 9: Electrical equipment and systems for railways, and CENELEC TC 9X chairmen, secretaries and expert advisors discuss the standardization areas where such coordination is necessary. IEC also works with committees in individual countries to coordinate work at the national level.
"The coordination between norm preparation and TSIs (Technical Specifications for Interoperability) is a unique task of CENELEC,” says Fadin. “This means that safety and interoperability issues are addressed by CENELEC for preparing norms harmonized with TSI. But there are historical standardization areas like onboard communication and the new but related multimedia that are standardized by IEC, so coordination between IEC and CENELEC is essential."
Safety and interoperability first
Up until the late 1990s, railway interoperability in Europe was still concentrated on the high-speed trains. Such trains are still an important issue in Europe, especially where interoperability is concerned, explains Fadin. However, when the CEEC entered the global railway market, efforts had to shift. This fleet consists mainly of conventional vehicles that are quite old and needing modernization, which meant a large monetary investment from the EU for both rehabilitation of the existing fleet and construction of new vehicles. This rolling stock, explains Fadin, is not ready for high-speed operation.
"The rolling stock investment in the CEEC was in the past very poor, so the existing fleet is virtually life-expired in technical terms," says Fadin. In Poland for example, the pre-feasibility study of the high-speed line Wroclaw/Poznan-Lodz-Warszawa was finished in 2006. Feasibility studies, land survey, design and purchase of additional land, are expected to be executed in the years 2007-2013. The construction of the first section from Wroclaw to Kalisz will start in 2014. All sections, including the one to the German border, are expected to be finished in 2020.
"It is clear that the interoperability issues regarding the CEEC railway traffic should be focused on the conventional trains at least for the next 13 years," says Fadin. "Bringing up other trains to par is one of the biggest challenges. The other is the energy billing and saving."
The fully compatible vehicle
The interoperable train communication network (TCN) is specified by the standard series IEC 61375, Electric railway equipment – Train bus –Train communication network. The UIC (International Union of Railways) is contributing to the standardization by providing IEC with a series of leaflets applicable to international trains, such as UIC 556, International standards for train communication, which describes syntax and semantics application data. The IEC and UIC aim to prepare a series of specification standards applicable to conventional vehicles with adequate compatibility so trains can be composed of vehicles from different manufacturers and different train operators. These trains need to be able to communicate with others by means of the communication backbone along the train.
IEC TC 9 WG 43 is in charge of restructuring the standard series IEC 61375 with the aim of including new vehicle buses and to extend the Wire Train Bus capability in order to provide an onboard broadband communication channel. The IEC TC 9 WG 46 is in charge of preparing a new standard series IEC 62580, Railways applications - Onboard multimedia systems for railway, that will specify the multimedia systems and onboard services.
These efforts will spur integration and compatible operation of different types of multimedia devices from different fleets and different operators. Fadin calls it "a common approach to digital communications, which will also enable the development of more applications that use it". The specification will cover the onboard and board-to-ground communication, and Ethernet and Internet technologies. "The final result will transform the train into a 'browser with wheels’," says Fadin.
Over the last decade, he says, the demand for onboard digital multimedia services has continuously increased. Today, the surveillance systems with or without real-time transmission to ground are installed on many commuter trains. Passengers want more and more entertainment functions. The Passenger Information System is now becoming a Passenger Entertainment and Information System.
In addition to ‘infotainment’, trains need video surveillance and closed circuit TV for safety and for communication between the train driver and the ground centres. Also, a new type of ‘black box’ called ODIS (Online Dispatching Information System) will be installed. ODIS is like a flight recorder that can train the driver through a ‘learn by errors’ approach that leads to a real preventive action against accidents. "This is much better than the old approach of learning by errors when the accident has already occurred,” says Fadin.
The IEC will help to standardize ODIS as a functional system that can be suitable to apply the existing regulations issued by each country and that can be easily retrofitted on existing vehicles.
Energy saving measures
Until recently, only one entity was responsible for managing the infrastructure of Europe’s rolling stock in each country, so there was no need to measure the energy consumed by trains, explains Fadin. Then came calls for TOC (Train Operator Companies) to enter the free market. Trains from different TOCs are running on the same infrastructure as well as moving from one infrastructure to another. New borders, called Tariff Borders now exist. "For now", says Fadin, "energy bought and sold is based on The Electric Power Exchange and a bilateral agreement between the producer and the consumer.
"Because the electricity cannot be stored, the energy market is based on the settlement and balance techniques that are trying to cope with a situation where the energy produced shall be equal as much as possible to the energy consumed,” says Fadin. “It is clear that energy will be measured and billed according to the real consumption, billing on a theoretical or statistical basis is no more acceptable.” Then, actual billing based on tons per kilometre will be replaced by a billing based on actual consumption of the rolling stock.
"This is the only way that may force energy efficiency and energy saving,” he says. “The reduction of the greenhouse effect is a must of the world and particularly of the European Union".
Some European countries have already experimented and, in some cases, introduced methods, tools and equipment in order to measure, save and bill the energy consumption of trains. For example, CATO (Computer Aided Train Operation) is a research and development project started by Transrail in 1998 and financed by the Swedish National Rail Administration and MTAB (Heavy iron ore trains, part of the Swedish mining company LKAB).
The overall goal of all of these efforts is a modern railway network in which the European infrastructures are fully connected and interoperable. Very modern passenger trains will have complete trip information and entertainment services. "These trains will also help the environment by saving energy and reducing CO2 production," says Fadin.
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